June 8 morning skate quotes: Drew Doughty

On pairing with Slava Voynov while on the power play:
“He’s got the hot stick right now, so I’m just going to keep giving him the puck every time. They don’t rush out at you like most teams do. They stop and they kind of find the lane first, and that gives you that extra two seconds, and you can get a shot on.”

On whether particular moments from last year’s run can help the team in the current situation:
“Of course. Last year, even though we made it kind of look easy, it wasn’t easy. We just had a team that never quit, and that’s the same with this playoffs. We were down two-nothing to St. Louis early, and we just didn’t quit. That’s our team motto, is we’re going to be the hardest working team out there. We’re going to compete to the very last whistle, and we’re for sure we’re going to do that tonight.”

On whether he has a sense whether Mike Richards will play tonight:
“I have no idea. I haven’t talked to him.”

On whether the team’s road play factors into tonight’s game:
“Of course it factors in. This arena is a tough building to come in to and steal a game. The fans are great. Their team feeds off their crowd’s energy, so our main focus is that first 10 mintues. We need to make the crowd quiet. We need to get a few goals early, take that out of the game and hopefully that deflates their team.”

On any message provided by Darryl Sutter this morning:
“I think for the most part the one message that’s really clear from Darryl is we don’t play hockey all the way until June if we’re not going to win. We’re not here to lose. Even though we’re down three-one, we want to win so bad, and we’re determined to come back in this series. It’s going to be tough. There’s no doubt about that. But we believe we can do that, and we didn’t make it this far for nothing.”

On the team’s offensive mantra:
“Our team’s thing is we’re hard to play against in the offensive zone. We have guys with skill – that’s for sure – but even our top skill guys, they’re not trying to dangle guys or toe drags here, toe drags there. They’re trying to take the puck to the net hard and bang in rebounds. That’s our team motto. We haven’t been doing that, and that’s why we’re not scoring more than two goals a game. We’re only getting a few, and that’s why we’re losing.”

On whether the team needs to summon its ability to win battles in front of the net, similar to what the team was able to do in the St. Louis series:
“That’s how we won that series. We outworked them around the net. In order to beat this team, we definitely have to do that. They’re a good defensive team, there’s no doubt about that. But besides maybe Seabrook on the back end, they don’t really have guys who are physical and tough to play against in that kind of aspect. So I think that’s what we need to do. We need to get pucks to the net. We need to bang in rebounds. We have big players on our team – big, physical guys – and they can out-compete their defensemen in front of the net.”

On any similarities between himself and Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews as a group of young players who have won Stanley Cups early in their careers:
“They’re both really good players, that’s for sure. I think they’re different players, though, at the same time. Toews is a heart-and-soul guy. He’s unbelievable in all aspects of the game. He’s a really good player. Kane is pretty much just strict offense guy. He’ll make a difference offensively, but he’s not going to make a difference in all the other areas. If you play him physical, it’s easier to take him out of the game than it is for Toews. Toews is going to compete until the last minute. I think that’s one of the bigger reasons why Toews did it so early, is because he led that team from the day he was on this team, and that’s why I think they won.”

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